Yesterday's Gone: Season Six (23 page)

Instead, he asked, “Faith in what? Do we have another plan?”

“Yes,” Desmond said. “That would be you, Mr. Roberts.”

“Me?”

“Yes,
you’re
going to go in there, get inside Mary’s head, and find everything we need to retrieve your daughter. You want her back, well, go and get her.”

Desmond turned and left Paul staring down at the woman who held his daughter’s fate inside her head.

He’d find out what she knew, or kill the bitch himself.

* * * *

CHAPTER 6 — Mary Olson

Mary felt like a trapped animal caught in some sterile lab, strapped to a table, awaiting dissection. She was nude, likely to make her feel even less human and more like a lab rat, which was probably how the aliens viewed humans: curious creatures to exploit, tear apart, and toy with.

Her head was pounding, her throat was sore from screaming for what felt like an hour after she woke to find herself confined. She’d gone from threats to cajoling, neither bearing fruit.

Nobody answered her calls.

Nobody entered the sterile ten-by-ten room with its all-white walls and high ceiling. She stared into the large mirror running along the top half of the wall in front of her. It reminded Mary of an operating theater. She wondered who was on the other side watching.

Desmond?

And if so, what horrors did he have in store?

She tried to bar her mind from such grisly images, telling herself that they’d already done the worst they could do. They’d killed Ryan and Paola — the only people she’d loved.

The aliens had occupied Desmond, the man Mary
thought
she loved.

What else could they do?
 

Hurt her?
 

She’d borne great pain before. She’d ride it out again.
 

Kill her?
 

Mary was already dead. Hell, if death was the endless sleep she figured it was, she was readier than ever to take an endless nap.

There was nothing left to take. Thinking about it that way, Mary felt almost calm.

In that serenity, she tried to reach out to Luca telepathically.
 

Mary felt nothing.
 

Sorry, the number you’re trying to reach is no longer in service.
 

Mary was on her own, presumably on the mothership, with no Team Boricio coming to rescue her. Hell, Team Boricio didn’t even know she was missing. Boricio thought she was at The Farm.

Dammit. I should’ve told him the truth.

Alone, restrained, her fate was thoroughly out of her hands. While that realization had scared the hell out of Mary when she first woke up tied to the table, it now offered an odd sort of peace.

There’s nothing I can do, so sit back, and wait for the end.

She wondered if this was a coping mechanism that would crumble the minute they hurt her. If they’d make her beg for mercy.

Mary vowed to herself that she would never beg. If anything, she’d push them — she’d
make them
kill her. She’d find a way to piss them off and lose sight of their plan.
 

She smiled.

They may have restrained her, but they couldn’t murder her wits. She’d find a way to endure or force their hand. She’d die on her terms, not theirs.

The door opened.

A short, schlumpy-looking man in his forties entered the room. He was wearing white pants and a matching shirt — either a doctor or a member of some stupid cult. His light-brown hair was graying in a thinning mess on his head.
 

Mary laughed. “He sent
you
to do his dirty work?”

“Whom are you talking about, ma’am?” the man said in a smooth, confident voice that belied his appearance.
 

“Desmond, the coward who killed my daughter. Why isn’t
he
here?” Mary looked up at the mirror and shouted. “You hiding behind the mirror, you cowardly fuck? You like watching, do ya?”

“My name is Paul Roberts,” the man said, approaching Mary with a friendly smile. He stopped at around where her hand was cuffed by her waist, standing to her right.

She looked him up and down. He wasn’t carrying anything. No pad to write. No tools for torture. So
why
was he here?

“Good for you,” she said, staring into his eyes.

The man was locked onto Mary’s eyes, as if afraid to look at her body. That boosted her confidence — something else she could use against him, even if she didn’t yet know how.

“I’m here to talk.”

“So, talk.”

“Where are your friends hiding?”

“Really?” Mary laughed. “That’s what you want to know? Like I’m going to tell you!”

“Desmond is offering you all safe passage. If your friends surrender, they can live on The Island. Wouldn’t you like to stop running? To stop hiding? To stop fighting? To stop dying?”

Mary smiled at the mirror. “You really think I believe you for a moment? We’re all dead the second we surrender. And we’d rather die than hand our bodies to you fuckers!”

“I understand. You don’t believe us. But there is no need to fight any longer. There are no vials left. There is no reason for your people to keep fighting. The war is over. We have many free humans living on The Island, I among them. We won’t take your bodies. Besides, your bodies are far from ideal.”

Mary laughed. “None of this means anything,
Paul
. I do not, and will not ever trust your leader.”

“Very well.” Paul’s smile faded.

Mary felt a sharp pain, like a vice clamping down on her head.
 

A psychic invasion. He’d said he was human, but unless he was a telepath —
how many of these fuckers are there?
— then the man was a liar.

She closed him out, hard, pushing back with everything she had.

Paul stumbled back as if physically pushed.

He stared at her, nervously.

Mary smiled. “Didn’t ever meet someone who could keep you out, eh?”
 

She could feel him trying again but held her focus, refusing his entry. Because Mary had been at least partially telepathic even before part of The Light found a home in her, Luca devoted more time training her than any of the others. She knew how to hold her defenses, and to mount minor counterattacks. Mary had never been able to go into someone’s head like Luca, but she could keep Paul out of hers, for a while at least.

Paul’s face flushed with anger, though he held his artificial smile.
 

Mary laughed, knowing it would piss him off more.

“What’s wrong, Paul? You look beat.”

His eyes narrowed, his anger emerging.

Yeah, that’s it. Embrace the rage.

Paul went from zero to sixty in a blink. He reached into his pocket. Before Mary could register his action, he placed a blade to her neck.

“How’s it feel?” he whispered in her ear.

Mary flinched, surprised to have death so close, the cold blade pressed to her throat. A bit of pressure would end it all. She might be able to force him to stab her if she thrust her neck forward, but she couldn’t quite muster that much suicidal enthusiasm.

Instead, she prodded him.

“Good,” she said, channeling her best Boricio. “Now finish the job, you pussy. Or don’t you have it in ya?”

“Where’s my daughter?” he asked, eyes red, hand trembling.

“Daughter?” Mary said, confused.

“The girl whose throat you slit. Where is she?”

Mary felt as if someone had taken all the bluster out of her sails.
 

Oh my God, this is Emily’s father.

Instead of feeling a hate for the man, she felt a kinship. He was as consumed with rage at her as she was for Desmond. The man was about to crack under the pressure.

All of the emotions she’d pushed away since slicing the girl’s neck flooded through her like a tidal wave, threatening to drag Mary to the depths of despair if she couldn’t cling to her sanity.

“I don’t know,” Mary said, desperate for him to believe her. “But she’s alive. I swear. I didn’t mean to do it. I don’t know what happened.”

Mary hated herself for sounding as if she were pleading for her life. But she wasn’t begging for salvation so much as for him to not hate her for what she did. To not think her a monster.

“Where is she?” Paul yelled. He took the knife from her throat and then plunged it into her leg.

Mary screamed, buckled in her restraints.

Paul pulled the knife out and was about to stab Mary again when the door flew open and two Guardsmen stormed into the room, guns drawn. “Drop the knife, Mr. Roberts!”

Paul turned to them, eyes wide as if he were as surprised to find himself stabbing Mary as they were. His hand opened, and the blade fell to the ground.

The Guardsmen grabbed him, roughly by the arms, cuffed his hands behind his back, and dragged him away.
 

As he was yanked through the door, he screamed, “Where is Emily?”

The door slid shut, leaving Mary alone, bleeding and crying.

* * * *

CHAPTER 7 — Brent Foster

The duffel bag’s strap dug into Brent’s shoulder blade.
 

“Fuck me,” said Luis, three yards ahead.
 

Brent looked up to see another wall of cars spanning the street.

He hoisted himself behind Luis, climbing atop an old Cadillac, denting the metal under his weight and hoping he wouldn’t fall through the roof. Luis was climbing the hood of a Hummer ahead.
 

A high-pitched siren screamed through the air.
 

Brent raised his gun and fired into the fog.

Creatures poured from inside it: running, clicking, shrieking.

Brent ran. A creature cried out behind him, so loud it seemed like it was over his shoulder, about to take him down.

CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK.
 

The monster landed on Brent and opened its large mouth, wailing an unearthly bellow as it straddled his chest, swiping at his face with its claws. Brent pushed against the creature’s wet, fleshy chest with his left hand, trying desperately to hold it back.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” He struggled to raise his pistol then emptied his ammo into the creature.
 

A spatter of hot, black gore spattered his face.

Something punched Brent in the ribs, sending him hard into another car. The gun fell from his clumsy hands. He looked up to see another creature approaching, eyes narrowed.

A pair of thunderous gunshots ripped through the air and knocked the creature back.
 

“Die! Die! Die!” Luis screamed, emptying his clip …

Brent was awake for a few minutes, hearing automatic gunfire explode on the other side of the metal wall before realizing he was no longer inside the old memories replaying as a dream.
 

The sounds exploded again, several shots at once, lasting in bursts of about twenty seconds.
 

Brent scrambled to standing, now fully out of his dream, daring to hope that their rescue had come.
 

“Dad?” Ben said.
 

The doors swung open before Brent could respond.
 

Marcus eclipsed most of the morning’s bright light.
 

“Slaves,” he said, then turned and marched toward the fields, leaving guards to gather chains and lead the prisoners from their rusty home.
 

Teagan was standing close to the door. Brent read her lips in the light:
What do you think that was?

Brent shook his head and shrugged, hating himself for not knowing more, or being willing to share the possible truth. He remembered Wilson’s words:
Every once in a while, they pick the weakest among us and shoot ‘em.

Marcus led the group to yesterday’s hole, but this time Brent saw not a box but the reason for the pit: dozens of bodies, bleeding from fresh wounds, some still moving.

Behind him, the kids screamed.

He retched, certain he was about to vomit.

He had to hold it in. Losing yesterday’s water and half-rotten fruit would only make him a target. Brent forced himself to look, to confront the truth of what he was about to do.
 

There were plenty of bodies, none with much meat. Not a single corpse could have weighed much more than Ben, though they’d all been stretched like taffy. They were scattered rather than stacked. The pair nearest Brent looked like they might have once been a couple, about the same age, a guy and a girl, the man in denim and the girl in a filthy cotton dress, ripped and stained. It might have been green when new. Their bones seemed baby bird brittle, barely there, so thin they might as well have been see-through.